Political scientist weighs in on upcoming federal election

The next federal election is a little over a month away and political scientists are starting to take a look at what the month will look like before the Sept 20 polling date.

Jim Farney, a political scientist at the University of Regina, doesn’t think there will be much change when it comes to seats in the province — however, there could be a few surprises, especially in northern Saskatchewan.

Long-time NDP MLA, Buckley Belanger, announced on Tuesday his resignation from the caucus in order to run as a Liberal in the northern riding of Desnethé – Missinippi -Churchill River.

“Where there might be a break in that blue wall would be (that) northern riding,” Farney said. “It’s always a closer three way race there than a lot of the other ones and Belanger has such a long history up there and is such a good politician.

“That might be something, there’s some possibilities, but the Conservatives are still polling pretty well on the prairies.”

Farney believes Belanger’s situation could be similar to what was seen with former Liberal Party MP in Saskatchewan, Ralph Goodale.

“In a way, It’s like what Goodale managed to do in Regina-Wascana for so long that people were voting for Ralph instead of the Liberal Party,” Farney said. “I can imagine the same thing happening up north and I think that’s going to be a really interesting race.”

In 2019, the province went entirely Conservative in all 14 seats. However, around the country, Farney thinks things will end up being a lot less predictable.

“I think the NDP story this election is actually going to be the most interesting one,” he said. “Often, people will swing over to the Liberals just to keep the Conservatives out of power. If that’s not an issue this election, and if young people are mobilized to vote, then all of a sudden you get the NDP picking up seats for those kind of turnout campaign dynamics that are really hard to judge from polling and often you wake up the day after and you are surprised.

“We could very well have some surprises in there.”

Farney expressed his worries about the timing of the election in relation to rising COVID cases around the country.

“If all of a sudden in places where there’s close races and there’s a big Delta surge, and we’ve got to shut polling down, I think that in an election that’s going to be close and has all these complicated dynamics,” said Farney. “That’s the end game that really worries me.

“I hope we actually see some articulation from Elections Canada, what the contingency plans look like for a worst case scenario in advance, because I think that would be an important kind of rule of law.”